Mom and Dad hit the road back home about an hour ago. It sounds like Mom got her Christmas shopping finished, and I already posted about Dad & I yesterday. We went to Kahoots and enjoyed a great dinner and I had a couple of nice craft beers.

Blogging is funny business, because you never know what people will like. I'm to the point where I just post what I like, and let the chips fall. I have to do some promotion, and it doesn't offend me as much as it used to. I'm getting galvanized to the process now. I posted an interesting vignette recently, and it got lukewarm results. The picture of the fox was much more interesting to my readers.

Yesterday was one of those rare posts that went crazy. Flipboard kicked in again, and the air museum post has over 1100 views and counting. Most of the traffic is from Flipboard. Maybe I need to write a book about a fox who flies an antique fighter plane. (Joking.)

Mom likes to spoil my dog when she's here. Otto must have gotten half-a-dozen new toys and can't decide what to play with next. My wife bought him this little Santa hat.

Since WordPress doesn't seem to like home videos, I had to share the video on the Entertaining Stories Facebook page. It seems Otto has a small problem with his hat, and it's pretty funny. There is a permanent link to the page in my sidebar to make it easy for you.

In other news, voting is still open over at the Rave Reviews Book Club. My novel, The Playground, is up for book of the year, and this blog, Entertaining Stories, is up for blog of the year. Voting is open to the public, and with all the new traffic, I decided to mention it again. Here is the link. It would be pretty cool to actually win something.

I'm the author at Story Empire tomorrow. We try to gear these posts toward writing craft, and publishing. It probably isn't the place for slice of life stuff. Tomorrow's post is all about including suspense in your fiction. Suspense is useful in all genres, and I'm offering up a few tips from my living document on the subject. I don't want to include a link for a future post, so I'll probably reblog it over here once I wake up. We'd like to grow Story Empire, so all of us would appreciate any sharing you might be inclined to do. I'll monitor the site and respond to any comments I get.

I got my critique submission out the door today. We meet on the 12th, and I should get started reading their submissions. I have a little time yet. I'm a little nervous about my submission, because it includes a sex scene. I choose to handle it delicately, but don't want readers to miss the point either. I'm not impressed by graphic descriptions, and I hope there is enough to let readers imagine the rest, if they're so inclined.

I'm about half finished with a book I'm reading, and may dedicate the rest of the day to that…and bills, there are always bills. At least both of us get three paychecks this month. This happens on occasion, and can be kind of helpful when it does.

It’s a social media format. It includes a bunch of curated magazines people post and share to. My magazine is called Entertaining Stories, oddly enough. I’ve had a couple of posts that went pretty crazy there.

The Otto video cracked me up. He’s a just a big dork. Loving the December wallpaper. I had one chapter that included a sex scene in it. Just one. Okay, so some of the book takes place in a nudist resort, but it’s not about sex. A lady reviewed my book for her site and in the third paragraph of her review she really went overboard about the sex in the book and how she had to skip over, and if you aren’t into to the bedroom antics of consenting adults you should probably skip over…like she did…but she read enough to be able to warn everybody off. One sex scene in the whole book, and it was plot related…and she went off. Sheesh. I laughed my butt off. She just told on herself and directed my target audience to my book…LMAO. Some people can be such prudes.

Glad you had an enjoyable visit. Love the stuff about the dog. I, too, struggle to find blog topics that resonate with readers. It seems to be hit or miss. If you ever figure out the magic formula, be sure to share!

I try some promo, some short fiction (even if it’s about my efforts at the writing cabin), mixed with a little slice of life. Sometimes the slice of life ones are the most popular. It seems to work, and my blog is still growing. Predicting which ones will click is pure folly.